9/11 Reflections: Philip Cumming, East Greenbush

On 9/11 my wife and I were in Nova Scotia on the second day of our vacation with another couple.

I had retired in 2000 from a job in 7 World Trade Center. The WTC was as familiar to me as my living room. On my retirement, we had moved upstate.

We were having breakfast in a restaurant outside of Halifax when we noticed what looked like some kind of fire on the television. We watched the 9/11 coverage until one of us finally voiced what we all felt: the need to be home.

We had come to Nova Scotia by high speed ferry, but the information we got said that the ferry was shut down, and perhaps the other border crossings as well. We decided to drive back through New Brunswick and try the border crossing into Maine from there.

As we drove, we listened to the Canadian radio. Air flights from the United States were all being grounded; many of them were being diverted to Canadian airports. Canadians were being asked to open their homes to the stranded passengers. There seemed to be very little traffic. We didn’t know whether that was normal or not. When we reached a toll booth the attendant saw our New York license and waved us through – no toll for us. A small, heart-felt gesture from a country that seemed to be supporting the United States in every way it could.

During the drive there was little conversation. All we felt was this urgent need to be back in our own country. Both of our daughters were pregnant at that time; our grandchildren would be born into a very different world.

We were expecting a long wait when we got to the U.S. border, but it was late when we reached it and there were only a few cars ahead of us. We were home.–Submitted by Philip Cumming, East Greenbush